Broadgate Tower

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This and the attached low-rise tower are the last phases of the Broadgate Centre before it gets rebuilt.

Design work on a building for this site originally began in 1991 and went through numerous options before settling for a tower.

Broadgate Tower has been constructed on a raft weighing 6,000 tonnes over the rail tracks that run above it to Liverpool Street Station. This means there is a requirement to distribute the weight of the tower, and hence no concrete core.

The a-frames that express the structure are one of the by-products of the lack of a central core with the outside of the building providing structural strength, clearly shown off in front of the glass and steel cladding.

There is 14,000 tonnes of steel used, 877 steps in the staircases, 40,000 square metres of glass cladding which is the equivalent of 154 tennis courts, and the view from the top stretches for 45 kilometres.

The diagonal cross bracing references various other famous SOM buildings in Chicago such as the Hancock Tower.

The lift supplier for the building is the Finnish company Kone which has installed the first double decker lifts to be used in the U.K adding great efficiency to the vertical transportation employed within the building.